Identify and Explain Three Business Processes in The Below Essay

Identify and Explain Three Business Processes in The Below Essay

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Type	Essay
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Description/Paper Instructions

Identify and Explain Three Business Processes in The Below Essay

IFSM 300 Assessment Exam

By my signature below, I confirm that the work contained here is my own, I have received no outside assistance and have properly cited and referenced any external research that has been incorporated in my answers. I have fully complied with UMUC’s Policy on Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism (Policy 150.25). Failure to properly credit your research sources is a violation of this policy.

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Instructions:

Use the Case Study presented here to answer the questions below. Your answers should be long enough to answer each question fully and completely. Quality vs. quantity counts – be specific enough to address the questions but do not include lengthy paragraphs. Each question can be answered in no more than 3 paragraphs. Your answers should demonstrate an understanding of the concept(s), should apply critical thinking, and should provide analysis of the Case Study in light of the concepts(s). You should not just re-iterate what has been presented in class but integrate the information and relate it to the Case Study. Proper APA style must be used for any citations and references that you use. Your Exam will be graded on the completeness and accuracy of your responses and whether you have appropriately tied your responses to the Case Study. Responses that do not mention the Case Study will receive very few points, if any. Each question is worth 10 points.

Download this file to your computer and save – be sure to insert your last name into the filename. Place your answers within this document directly below each question.

OLD DOMINION TRAIL BIKES

Case Study

In 1985 Ted Thomas took $6,000 of his savings, borrowed another $4,000 from his best friend, and opened a bike rental business in Vienna, VA, adjacent to the Washington & Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) that goes from Purcellville to Old Town Alexandria (45 Miles) and connects to the Mt Vernon Trail (18 Miles) and ends at George Washington’s Mt Vernon Estate. He rented a location, bought 10 bikes and opened his first store in Vienna near an entrance to the W&OD Trail, where there is also parking, and near the historic Vienna Inn and a number of food and drink establishments. He has since opened stores in Old Town Alexandria and Reston, VA, where he sells, rents and repairs bicycles. The Vienna store is now his anchor store, and at 5,000 square feet, it is three to five times larger than his other stores. Ted estimates he sells around 3,000 new bikes a year. Because of the high use of the W&OD trail, especially on weekends, he also provides tune up and maintenance services at all of his stores for the many riders from up and down the trail.

In 2012, Ted leased a store in the heart of D.C., near the Smithsonian Museums and other tourist attractions. He uses this store to rent bikes to tourists and residents of the city and does some repairs to his rental bicycle inventory in the back of the shop.

Although he has always made money, or he would not be in business, Ted has seen a decline in bikes sales of about 20 percent since 2008. He attributes this to the downturn in the economy and the growth in Internet sales. However, his rental, tune up, and repair business has increased dramatically. Over the past few years, he realized that he must be more aware of expenses and decrease them wherever practical in order to preserve profits.

Ted has learned that the one of the most important factors is the weather. On rainy days, there are few customers in the stores, while on sunny weekends all of his locations are extremely busy. From spring through fall, Ted keeps all his stores open seven days a week, while in the winter months he opens his stores on the weekend when the weather is good for riding. Through observation, Ted figures his highest sales occur in May, and that June and September are his best months for rentals. He also sells many bikes during the holiday season in December, but in January and February, he often wonders if he should close shop and go to Florida for a couple of months.

Old Dominion Trail Bikes grosses between $5 and $8 million annually and earns Ted a comfortable six-figure income. Each year, he leaves a considerable amount of cash in the business so that he does not have to borrow money. He sells a wide variety of bikes (from tricycles for toddlers to sophisticated racing bikes) and accessories such as helmets, speedometers, bike racks, repair kits, and clothing. Bicycle sales have decreased to account for 25 percent of revenues. Accessories such as helmets, bike racks, gloves, and locks amount to another 5 percent. Rentals make up about 35 percent, and repairs make up the remaining 35 percent.

In recent years, he has noted that customers are less likely to purchase the high-end road and triathlon bikes and are purchasing bikes in the range of $400 to $1,000. The lower priced bikes are also easier to sell and to keep the cash flow moving.

Most of the rental business is concentrated in the D.C. store in downtown and the Alexandria store, due to the tourists and university students located near those stores. Ted is excited about rentals, as they have a huge profit margin. He can charge as much as $50 a day, which means the bikes pay for themselves after just a few rentals.

Ted’s expenses include the cost of goods such as new bikes and accessories, rent and payroll. He negotiates leases for all his locations except the Alexandria store, which he owns outright. Ted has 15 full-time employees and usually hires another 15 part-time employees during the busy months and weekends.

Until two years ago, he was spending about $30,000 a year on advertising in local papers. Now he uses a simple website and has links on many of the local biking trail sites to provide information about his various locations, and his advertising budget is close to zero.

In the late 1990s, Ted over-expanded to six stores, including a store in Purcellville, VA, and one in Bethesda, MD. The expansion necessitated a warehouse in Springfield, VA, the hiring of a general manager and considerable overhead expenses. In a subsequent cost-reduction effort, Ted closed the Bethesda store, gave up the warehouse and moved his inventory to the Vienna store, and let the general manager go. Now, he handles all the general management tasks himself, which affects the time that he has available to plan and develop strategies.

Ted further reduces his expenses by working in the Vienna store two days a week. Since he has only one staff person in some of his stores, he has to make special arrangements if that person does not come to work, or takes a day (or week) off.

He is trying to expand the bicycle repair work, especially on the weekends, so he will be able to increase revenue from this profitable aspect of his business. He needs to have repair capability at each store to maintain the rentals, prepare the new bikes for sale, and perform the periodic maintenance for the bikes that he has sold, as well as provide the breakdown repairs and adjustments for the riders on the Trail.

In an effort to increase profits, Ted tries to get good deals from his suppliers so he can realize a good margin on bike and accessory sales and repairs. He looks for situations where suppliers have more bikes in a line than they need and buys those bikes at a discount for rentals and low-end sales, while maintaining a rapport with high end suppliers so that he can offer his customers the best at reasonable prices. By doing so, he can sell bikes at a lower retail price with on-the-spot delivery while still realizing a nice profit.

Ted has no bank debt and has long since repaid the $4,000 he borrowed from his friend to start the business. He feels that, because he has a diverse business strategy that addresses the many different aspects of the local bike business, he will do well in the many different economic climates as long as he is able to manage his varied business. He also feels that he is insulated from competition from Internet sales, due to the rental and repair aspects of his business.

Questions:

1. List 3strategic goals for Ted’s business and provide an explanation of each.
2. Identify 5 specific types or categories of information that Ted needs to run his business and explain why they are important to him.
3. Identify and explainthree business processes that Ted likely uses in his business and explain how a technology solution could help each one of them.
4. Ted has a website with information about his stores. Identify and explaintwoadditional ways Ted could use the internet in his business. Tie each use to a specific e-commerce business model and explain how that model applies.
5. Explainto Ted what a supply chain management (SCM) system could do for his business and how it might improve his operations. Be sure to cover the full range of SCM functionality as it applies to Old Dominion Trail Bikes.
6. Howcould Ted combine the information he gets from in-store customers with those who purchase via the website into a single Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and what three benefits would he gain from doing so?
7. Ted would like to increase repair work and rentals as they are the highest profit aspects of his business and the Internet is not a competitor. What are three specific wayshe could use technology to accomplish this?
8. Ted is not sure if he should implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. Identify and explainthreebenefits to an ERP for Old Dominion Trail Bikes. Identify and explain two important considerations in implementing an ERP.
9. If Ted implements an ERP for Old Dominion Trail Bikes, he will need to know whether the project was a success. List and explainthreemetrics (or measures) he can use to determine whether the project was a success.
10. Since neither Ted nor anyone on his staff has any experience with information technology, list and explainfivethings he should consider or address as he proceeds with his IT projects.
11. Identify and Explain Three Business Processes in The Below Essay

RUBRIC QUALITY OF RESPONSE NO RESPONSE POOR / UNSATISFACTORY SATISFACTORY GOOD EXCELLENT Content (worth a maximum of 50% of the total points) Zero points:  Student failed to submit the final paper. 20 points out of 50:  The essay illustrates poor understanding of the relevant material by failing to address or incorrectly addressing the relevant content; failing to identify or inaccurately explaining/defining key concepts/ideas; ignoring or incorrectly explaining key points/claims and the reasoning behind them; and/or incorrectly or inappropriately using terminology; and elements of the response are lacking. 30 points out of 50:  The essay illustrates a rudimentary understanding of the relevant material by mentioning but not full explaining the relevant content; identifying some of the key concepts/ideas though failing to fully or accurately explain many of them; using terminology, though sometimes inaccurately or inappropriately; and/or incorporating some key claims/points but failing to explain the reasoning behind them or doing so inaccurately.  Elements of the required response may also be lacking. 40 points out of 50:  The essay illustrates solid understanding of the relevant material by correctly addressing most of the relevant content; identifying and explaining most of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology; explaining the reasoning behind most of the key points/claims; and/or where necessary or useful, substantiating some points with accurate examples.  The answer is complete. 50 points:  The essay illustrates exemplary understanding of the relevant material by thoroughly and correctly addressing the relevant content; identifying and explaining all of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology explaining the reasoning behind key points/claims and substantiating, as necessary/useful, points with several accurate and illuminating examples.  No aspects of the required answer are missing. Use of Sources (worth a maximum of 20% of the total points). Zero points:  Student failed to include citations and/or references. Or the student failed to submit a final paper. 5 out 20 points:  Sources are seldom cited to support statements and/or format of citations are not recognizable as APA 6th Edition format. There are major errors in the formation of the references and citations. And/or there is a major reliance on highly questionable. The Student fails to provide an adequate synthesis of research collected for the paper. 10 out 20 points:  References to scholarly sources are occasionally given; many statements seem unsubstantiated.  Frequent errors in APA 6th Edition format, leaving the reader confused about the source of the information. There are significant errors of the formation in the references and citations. And/or there is a significant use of highly questionable sources. 15 out 20 points:  Credible Scholarly sources are used effectively support claims and are, for the most part, clear and fairly represented.  APA 6th Edition is used with only a few minor errors.  There are minor errors in reference and/or citations. And/or there is some use of questionable sources. 20 points:  Credible scholarly sources are used to give compelling evidence to support claims and are clearly and fairly represented.  APA 6th Edition format is used accurately and consistently. The student uses above the maximum required references in the development of the assignment. Grammar (worth maximum of 20% of total points) Zero points:  Student failed to submit the final paper. 5 points out of 20:  The paper does not communicate ideas/points clearly due to inappropriate use of terminology and vague language; thoughts and sentences are disjointed or incomprehensible; organization lacking; and/or numerous grammatical, spelling/punctuation errors  10 points out 20:  The paper is often unclear and difficult to follow due to some inappropriate terminology and/or vague language; ideas may be fragmented, wandering and/or repetitive; poor organization; and/or some grammatical, spelling, punctuation errors 15 points out of 20:  The paper is mostly clear as a result of appropriate use of terminology and minimal vagueness; no tangents and no repetition; fairly good organization; almost perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word usage. 20 points:  The paper is clear, concise, and a pleasure to read as a result of appropriate and precise use of terminology; total coherence of thoughts and presentation and logical organization; and the essay is error free. Structure of the Paper (worth 10% of total points) Zero points:  Student failed to submit the final paper. 3 points out of 10: Student needs to develop better formatting skills. The paper omits significant structural elements required for and APA 6th edition paper. Formatting of the paper has major flaws. The paper does not conform to APA 6th edition requirements whatsoever. 5 points out of 10: Appearance of final paper demonstrates the student’s limited ability to format the paper. There are significant errors in formatting and/or the total omission of major components of an APA 6th edition paper. They can include the omission of the cover page, abstract, and page numbers. Additionally the page has major formatting issues with spacing or paragraph formation. Font size might not conform to size requirements.  The student also significantly writes too large or too short of and paper 7 points out of 10: Research paper presents an above-average use of formatting skills. The paper has slight errors within the paper. This can include small errors or omissions with the cover page, abstract, page number, and headers. There could be also slight formatting issues with the document spacing or the font Additionally the paper might slightly exceed or undershoot the specific number of required written pages for the assignment. 10 points: Student provides a high-caliber, formatted paper. This includes an APA 6th edition cover page, abstract, page number, headers and is double spaced in 12’ Times Roman Font. Additionally, the paper conforms to the specific number of required written pages and neither goes over or under the specified length of the paper.
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